The Olympics men’s basketball results from Day 9 of Rio 2016 and the action out of Group A in the preliminary round
With each Olympics men’s basketball team in Group A facing off in their fifth game thus far, there weren’t many surprises. There were three games on the schedule for Sunday, August 14, with just one being a close call.
The day started off with 4-0 Team USA squaring up against 3-1 France. France had NBA studs Nicolas Batum, Boris Diaw and Rudy Gobert all in their starting lineup. However, they were missing French cornerstone Tony Parker due to rest.
Klay Thompson was ice cold early on in the Olympics, causing coach Mike Krzyzewski to bench him in favor of Paul George. After George didn’t produce as Coach K hoped, Thompson was re-asserted into the starting lineup and caught fire.
He had 30 points, leading the United States to a 100-97 victory over France.
The scrappy Australian team took on Venezuela in Game 2 of the day.
Australia, laden with NBA talent, gave Team USA a run for their money in their game before losing their grip on the game and falling short. Venezuela, however, was easy money for a starting lineup consisting of NBAers Aron Baynes, Andrew Bogut, Matthew Dellavedova and Joe Ingles.
Venezuela never led in this one, falling 81-56. Australia moved on to a 4-1 record–second in Group A behind the US–while Venezuela fell to 1-4.
Serbia and China were the last two teams to play for the day, and it did not go well for now 0-4 China.
After a strong rookie season in the NBA, Nikola Jokic decided to play for his home country in the Olympics, and it hasn’t gone well thus far. While they played Team USA close, Serbia–like China–was 0-3 coming into today.
Luckily for them, this Chinese team just does not have the talent to keep up with the teams in their group and they lost this one, 94-60.
Serbia is now on the board with a 1-3 record.